Embodiments herein generally relate to web printing for books, newspaper, magazines, business forms and other large volume printing, and more particularly to methods and apparatuses that determine web press printing capabilities and costs of different printing vendors.
Reverse auctioning tools for print procurement allow document advisors (DA) to generate savings for customers by selecting and awarding print jobs to vendors who offer the lowest pricing and optimum production methods, based upon contractual rates and capability (ratecards) submitted by vendors.
The current business model and practices to leverage web-type (continuous print media roll-type) printing presses are limited to single web (single media roll) input. In the absence of multiple web press cost projection functionality, printing vendors or document advisors use non-standard tools to store and analyze data to provide pricing information. However, by using non-standard tools, printing vendors and print buyers are unable to use sourced ratecards (ratecards are the price point where suppliers provide the rates for each service during automated sourcing engagement). This results in uneven pricing and the inability to benchmark savings opportunities.
Embodiments herein provide implementations of web press determination and signature processes, devise profile information needed to support the processes, and devise unique impressions, paper, ink, and press platemaking formulas for all new press types.
The embodiments herein increase savings for customers and generate additional revenue for those printing vendors tied to a fee structure based upon procurement volume. The growth of web printing for books, newspaper, magazines, business forms and other large volume print has made web press a major part of the printing industry.
In view of these issues, embodiments herein provide a machine-implemented method that determines web press printing capabilities and costs of different printing organizations using a processor. The printing capabilities comprise the number of printing units and the associated number of supply roll stands that supply continuous print media to the printing units. The method can determine the web press printing capabilities using an automated interactive communication system established between the printing units, the supply roll stands, and the processor. The method maintains such printing capabilities and costs of the different printing organizations as rate cards within a computer-readable storage medium operatively connected to the processor.
The method can then receive a printing request from a print customer through a graphic user interface operatively connected to the processor. The method automatically evaluates the printing request using the processor to determine printing request requirements. Such printing request requirements comprise the number of colors to be printed and the number of pages to be printed. The method can automatically compare the printing request requirements with the rate cards (using a comparator operatively connected to the processor) to identify capable printing organizations that have the ability to process the printing request, from the list of all potential different printing organizations.
The method can automatically calculate different print choices and costs based on the rate cards of the capable printing organizations (using the processor) and automatically outputs the different print choices and costs to the print customer through the graphic user interface. The different print choices can include different print qualities, different completion times, different printing widths, different printing run lengths, different numbers of print colors, and different finishing options for the print job. Each of the printing units only prints a single color at a time. By using different combinations of multiple printing units and multiple supply rolls, many colors can be printed in a single production run. The method calculates the different print choices considering different combinations of the printing units and the supply roll stands.
Apparatus embodiments are also utilized herein. One such apparatus includes a processor that determines the web press printing capabilities and costs of the different printing organizations and a computer-readable storage medium operatively connected to (directly or indirectly connected to) the processor. The processor determines the web press printing capabilities through an automated interactive communication system between the printing units, the supply roll stands, and the processor.
The computer-readable storage medium maintains the printing capabilities and costs of the different printing organizations as rate cards. The computer-readable storage medium also contains instructions (that can be stored as computer code) that the processor executes to perform the processes described herein.
The graphic user interface is operatively connected to the processor. The graphic user interface receives a printing request from a print customer, the processor automatically evaluates the printing request to determine the printing request requirements. The comparator is also operatively connected to the processor. The comparator automatically compares the printing request requirements with the rate cards to identify ones of the different printing organizations that have abilities to process the printing request as capable printing organizations.
The processor automatically calculates different print choices and costs based on the rate cards of the capable printing organizations. The processor calculates such different print choices and costs by considering different combinations of the printing units and the supply roll stands. The graphic user interface automatically outputs such different print choices and costs to the print customer.
These and other features are described in, or are apparent from, the following detailed description.